Vampire in Paradise (27 page)

A misty, white shape emerged. Ghostlike.

“Harek Sigurdsson!” a male voice yelled out of the mist, so loud that Harek jerked into a sitting position and almost rolled off the small pallet built into an alcove. He blinked and tried to see the hazy blur standing in the open doorway leading to the longship’s deck. The only light came from the full moon outside.

At first, he was disoriented. Who wouldn’t be with a head the size of a wagon wheel, with what felt like a battle axe imbedded in his skull?

A man . . . he could swear it was a man he saw standing there, and yet at the same time, there was no one there. Just a swirling fog.

“Who goes there?” he yelled out, thinking it must be one of the crew stationed on board overnight.

Silence.

Now he was starting to be annoyed. “Present yourself, man, or suffer the consequences.”

No one answered. Good thing because he realized he had no weapon in hand. Should he go back inside? What kind of weapon did one use with a ghost?

He shook his head to clear it, to no avail. He was still under the influence of ale. Or something.

He could see clearer now and it was a tall, dark-haired man wearing a long gown in the Arab style who beckoned him outside. The gown in itself was not so unusual but the broadsword he held easily in one hand was, especially since it was his own pattern-welded blade. Then, there were the huge white wings spread out from his back.

What? Wings? Huh? It couldn’t be possible. He closed his eyes and looked again. Definitely wings.

Was it even a man? Or some kind of bird?

He had heard of shivering men suffering from wild dreams of writhing snakes or even fire-breathing dragons, but usually it was men trying to wean themselves away from years of the addictive brews or opium. Harek rarely drank to excess and never had an interest in the poppy seed.

But Harek had a more important issue at the moment. His bladder was so full he would be pissing from his ears if he didn’t soon relieve himself. Making his way through the now empty doorway, he staggered over to the rail. Undoing the laces on his braies, he released himself and let loose a long stream of urine. When he was done . . . shaking his cock clean, then tucking it back into his braies . . . he breathed a sigh of relief, then belched. Which was a mistake. His breath was enough to gag a maggot.

Which cleared his head enough to let him know he still had company. The man-bird stood there, scowling at him with contempt. The wings were folded so that you could scarce tell they were there.

“Who . . . what are you?”

“Michael. The Archangel.”

Harek knew about angels. In his travels, he had encountered many a follower of the Christian religion, and a pathetic religion it was, too. Only one God? Pfff! “I am Norse.”

“I know who you are, Viking.”

He did not say “Viking” in a complimentary manner. And, really, Harek needed to get to his bed and sleep off this alehead madness. Best he get this nightmare over with as soon as possible. “And you are here . . . why?”

“God is not pleased with you, Harek. You are a dreadful sinner, as are your brothers, as are many of your fellow Norsemen. ‘Tis time to end it all.”

“End it? Like, death?”

“You say it.”

“All of us?” he scoffed.

“Eventually.”

“That requires an explanation. Are you threatening me and my family?” He inched backward from the looming figure, hoping to reach a nearby oar, which he could use as a makeshift weapon. But he felt dizzy and wobbly on his feet. “I need to sit down.”

“What you need, fool, is to pray.”

What a ridiculous conversation! He could not wait to wake up and tell his friends about this strange dream. It would be fodder for the skalds who ever needed new ideas for their sagas. “Pray? For my life?” he scoffed.

“No. For your everlasting soul. Your death is predetermined.”

Enough! This madness had gone on long enough! “Speak plainly,” he demanded.

“Thou art a dreadful sinner, Harek. Dreadful! Your greed is eating you alive, and you do not even know it.”

He must have appeared confused. Bloody hell, of course he was confused. “What have I done that is so bad?”

The man-thing . . . an archangel, he had called himself . . . shook his head as if Harek were a hopeless case. “Your most recent activity is so despicable. How can you even ask?”

“Oh! The slave trading! That is what this is about.” Harek was disgusted up to his very gullet with all this sanctimonious condemnation of his business dealings. First, Toriq. Now some angel with flea-bitten wings trying to lord over him.

“I do not have fleas.”

That was just wonderful. The creature could read minds.

“And I am not a creature.”

Harek inhaled deeply for patience and almost fell over. He reached the rail for support. “In truth, what is so wrong with thralldom? Your own Biblical leaders . . . Abraham, David, Moses, had slaves.”

“You dare to compare yourself to such great men!” He pointed a long forefinger at Harek, and he felt a jolt of sharp pain shoot through him.

“I only meant—“

“Silence! For your sins, you will die, leaving your mortal form behind. For the grace of God, you are being given a second chance to redeem yourself.”

That caught Harek’s attention, but he was an astute businessman. He knew no great prize came without a price. “And what must I do to redeem myself?”

“You will become an vangel . . . a vampire angel . . . one of the troops being formed to fight Satan’s evil Lucipires, demon vampires.”

“I am a Viking. I hardly think I am the material for saintly angelhood.”

“You will not be that kind of angel.”

“For how long would I be required to fight these . . . um, demons?” He was still not convinced this wasn’t just a bad dream.

“As long as it takes. Seven hundred years at first. Longer, if you fail to follow the rules.”

“Now there are rules?”

“No great prize comes without a price,” Michael told him, repeating his own thoughts back at him. Again. “Do you agree?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“There is always a choice.”

What did he have to lose? Harek nodded, and before he had a chance to change his mind, the archangel pressed the tip of the broadsword against Harek’s chest, causing him to lean backward, farther and father, until he fell over the rail into the water.

It should have been no problem. He was a leather-lunged swimmer when need be, but his body was suddenly riddled with excruciating pain. His jaw felt as if it were being cracked, then forced back together with an iron vise. In fact, it felt as if he had long fang-like incisors now. And his back! His shoulder blades seemed to burst open. The place where wings should go, he presumed, but instead, the skin healed into raised knots. All this happened in the matter of seconds as he sank deeper and deeper into the murky depths. Choking on the briny water. Fighting to swim upward against a force determined to hold him down. Drowning. He no longer fought his fate.

Even so, Harek had time and brains enough left to realize that he’d forgotten to ask one question:

What exactly was a vangel?

Camille Dumaine was dragging her feet as she walked from the beach at the Coronado Navy SEAL training compound . . . her thirty-year-old bones feeling every bit of her just completed five-mile jog in heavy boots on wet sand under a bright, ninety-degree California sun. Didn’t help that she was sweating like a pig or that one of the swabbies in the newbie class had barfed all over her during “sugar cookies,” a particular exercise designed to punish. Also didn’t help that she heard a male voice call out, “Yo, Camo! You’re wanted in the commander’s office.”

It was Trond Sigurdsson, whose Navy SEAL nickname was Easy. All SEALs got appropriate, and not-so-appropriate nicknames when they first entered BUD/S training, Basic Underwater Demoliton SEAL. Trond was a mite lazy, known to always look for the easy way. Same nicknaming was true of the elite WEALS, Women on Earth, Air, Land, and Sea, the sister unit to the SEALs, of which Camille was a charter member, two years of training and five years on duty now. Thus, Camille’s nickname of Camo, which wasn’t a play on her name, or not totally, but her ability to camouflage herself, no matter the setting. Being invisible in a crowd could be invaluable for a special forces operative, male or female, she’d learned on more than one occasion. It was one of the prime reasons she’d been recruited to begin with.

A chameleon, that’s what she would put on her resume, if she had one. Who knew, growing up in New Orleans’ Garden District, that being of average height and weight, with plain brown hair and eyes, and just a touch of Creole coloring in her skin would be such an asset? Certainly not her, and definitely not her mother and father, Dr. Emile Dumaine and Dr. Jeannette Fortinet, world-renowned heart surgeons, or her over-achieving brother Louis Dumaine, who was a rocket scientist. No kidding! But she had learned early on that, with the aid of make-up, clothing, a wig, even something as simple as posture or hand gestures, she could change herself into whatever she wanted to be

“I need to shower first,” she told Easy.

“I think Mac means
now
. They’ve been holding off the meeting ‘til you got back from your run.” He sniffed the air and took a step back, even as he spoke, and then grinned. Easy knew well and good that SEALs and WEALS had to work just as hard, physically, after they’d earned their pins to keep in shape. Smelling ripe was not so unusual. “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle,” was a familiar mantra.

A meeting? He mentioned a meeting?
She went immediately alert. Rumors had been circulating for weeks about a new mission. One that involved taking down those African scumbags who had been kidnapping young girls for sex slaves. Camille felt passionately about what was being done to these innocent children in the name of religion, and she wanted in on this mission. Partly she was infuriated as a women’s rights issue, but it was also her history as a Creole that fueled her fire. Camille’s grandmother many times removed had been “sold” at one of the famous pre-Civil War Quadroon Balls when she was only fifteen.

Just then, she noticed another man with Easy. He had stopped to talk with SEAL Justin “Cage” LeBlanc and was now approaching her and Easy. The similarities, and the differences, between the two men were immediately apparent. Both were very tall, probably six foot four, lean and well muscled, but whereas Easy’s attire . . . athletic shorts, drab green SEAL t-shirt, and baseball cap, socks, and boots . . . said military to the bone, this guy wore a golf shirt tucked into khaki pants with a belt sporting an odd buckle in the shape of wings, designer loafers without socks, and a spiffy gold watch. Whereas Easy looked as if he was about to work the O-Course, the other man carried an over-the-shoulder, high-end, leather laptop case. The most dramatic difference was between Easy’s dark, high and tight haircut, and the new guy’s light brown hair, spritzed into deliberate disarray. The pale blue eyes they both shared were the gravy on this feast for the eyes.

Camille wasn’t drawn to over-endowed men, especially ones who were so vain they moussed their hair in the morning, especially since she worked in testosterone central where muscles were the norm, but Holy Moly! This man, probably no more than thirty, was the epitome of sex on the hoof.

She licked her lips and forced herself to calm down.
I look like hell,
she reminded herself.
On a good day, this superior male specimen wouldn’t give me a look. After two failed near-marriages, I do not need another complication. Wash your mind, girl. I better check to make sure I’m not drooling.
“Your brother, I presume?” she said to Easy.

“How could you tell?” Easy said with a laugh. “Camo, this is my brother Harek Sigurdsson. Harek, this is Camille Dumaine, the female Navy SEAL I told you about.”

Why would Easy be discussing me with his brother?
Definitely not proper protocol for secretive special forces members to be made known to civilians, even a family member. She frowned at Easy, who just grinned. The idiot! Even if he was married to a fellow WEALS member and a good friend of Camille’s, Nicole Tasso, his charm was wasted on her.

His brother, on the other hand . . . whoo boy!

She took the hand that Harek extended to her as he said, “I’ve heard so much about you that—“

They both froze, extended hands still clasped. A sensation, like an electrical shock, except softer and coming in waves, rippled from his fingers onto hers, then rushed to all her extremities. It was like having world class sex without all the bother.

“What is that odor?” Harek asked, as if stunned.

Talk about an instant lust destroyer! “Vomit,” she disclosed.

He shook his head. “No. Roses.” He closed his eyes, leaned forward slightly and inhaled deeply. “Hundreds and hundreds of roses.”

Turning to his brother, he asked, “Can’t you smell it?”

“Are you demented? She smells like she’s been rolling in . . .” Easy’s voice trailed off as something seemed to occur to him. “The mating scent! Finally! You’ve been bitten! I can’t wait to tell Vikar and the others.”

“No! That’s impossible!” Harek was staring at her now like she was some strange, repulsive creature. And what was it with those slightly elongated incisors of his? She hadn’t noticed them at first. Not that they looked bad. It was just that today, with all the modern orthodontics, folks, especially male ones pretentious enough to get designer haircuts, would have corrected the imperfection.

“What scent? What bite? I need to get to the meeting.” She tugged her hand out of his continued clasp and was about to walk away.

Easy, who had been bent over laughing, raised his head and said, “’Tis the musk men and women in my, uh, family give off when they meet their destined life mates.”

Well, that was clear as mud, especially since Harek was muttering, “No, no, no! Not now. Not her! I just got back from Siberia. I haven’t thawed out yet.”

“What the hell is a life mate? And why not me? Forget I asked that.” As for thawing out, if he was any hotter, he would combust. She gave the obviously distressed man a glare and turned on Trond. “In case you need a reminder, Easy, I am not a member of your family.”